Social Distancing with BLE Beacons

After listening various requests, ideas and suggestions from many business realities, who approached us as potential customers of #Beacon #Bluetooth to be used to support the social distancing required to fight the Sars-Cov2 pandemic, we’ve identified two distinct solutions, both valid and applicable depending on the scenarios that each business reality has within it.

FIRST SOLUTION:

CONTACT TRACING via APP + Bracelets / keychains

In this solution, BLE beacons help to maintain social distancing thanks to the possibility of communicating with the smartphone, in ways similar to the communication between Smartphone and Smartphone; that is, when at least one of the two people is equipped with a smartphone, thanks to acoustic, bright or vibrating alerts implemented, social spacing is encouraged.

The solution provides the ability of the beacons to interact with each other and, thanks to the immediate light signal (vibe and buzzer), the possibility to ensure the maintenance of the distance between people. The downside of this solution is the battery life(from 10 to 30 days) , due to the continuous use of the processor to “listen” to the presence of BLE beacons in the nearby. The beacons then also broadcast a special advertising allowing for control intervention by the staff in charge (head of department /RSPP). Finally, the storage function of the MAC Address of the detected beacon can be enabled, to better track the possible chain of contagion.

Both solutions are based on our “standard” BLE beacons, which integrate many other features including the ability to send alarm signals in case of danger or call for help and, the “man down” function, in case of sickness.

Thanks to their ductility, these BLE beacons will able to be used even after the end of the Covid emergency, thus allowing long-term technological innovation.

Beacons can also be integrated in complex systems, with the presence of Gateway and Echobeacon (repeater) devices, for applications in logistics,industry and at all levels of the company. In other words, the proposed beacons, after the Covid emergency, can be rearranged for other purposes and other projects.